Consumers worldwide have evinced a desire for continuous ubiquitous access to information, communication links, and entertainment content. This desire has led to the introduction of mobile devices (e.g., cell phones, personal media devices (PMDs), portable gaming systems, etc. . . . ) with increased communication throughput and processing capabilities capable of handling complex data rich interactions with between users and providers. As more people use their mobile devices for data rich applications such as web surfing and viewing mobile television, the providers of such services naturally seek methods to derive profit from these activities.
One obvious method is to charge for the various services. However, users of such services will only pay a limited amount, which may or may not adequately compensate the providers of the services. Compounding the problem, a variety of parties are typically involved in the providing of such services. For example, there is the provider of the communication path (e.g. the cellular network operator), the content aggregators (e.g. the networks and web site operators), and the content providers. As a result, providers are looking to advertising to generate a revenue stream.
This is not unexpected as traditional main stream media outlets such as newspaper, television and radio have long relied upon advertisements to generate revenue streams. Advertising on mobile devices is estimated by one analyst to become a worldwide $25B market by 2011 as mobile devices proliferate around the world. However, much like the Internet, advertising on mobile devices present challenges when compared to traditional broadcast media. For example, when “pushing” advertisements, especially large format “rich” advertisements, consideration must be given to the limited throughput associated with wireless networks and the limited power available to mobile devices.